Hardee's

Hardee's is an American fast-food restaurant chain, located mostly on the Eastern Half of the United States in Midwest, Southeast, and East Coast regions.

Company History

Hardee's was founded by Wilbur Hardee, who opened his first restaurant in Greenville, North Carolina in 1960. The chain grew by franchising and by acquiring other restaurant chains. In the early 1970s, the regular menu featured the Deluxe burger, the "Jr. Deluxe", as well as regular hamburgers and cheeseburgers, chili dogs, fries, shakes and fountain drinks, and the obligatory rectangular deep-fried apple pie. The burgers were advertised as "charco-broiled" but it was actually a process of electrically heated "char-rocks" that caused the fat content dripping off the cooking beef to ignite for that "flame-broiled" taste. Mama Cass Elliot was the vocalist for Hardee's radio ads at the time of her death in 1974, with the jingle, "Hurry on down to Hardee's, where the burgers are charco-broiled..." Many original Hardee's were built with a hexagonal style building with a pointed roof. Some had lobbies, but most were al fresco-walk-up style. For a time, Hardee's hamburgers were hexagonal, particularly the quarter-pound patties.

Hardee's purchased Sandy's in 1972, Burger Chef in 1982, and Roy Rogers in 1990. The chain with more than 2,500 restaurants, existed just about anywhere in the United States outside of the West Coast at that point.

Hardee's was owned by the Canadian company Imasco from 1981 to 1997. In 1997, the chain was acquired by CKE Restaurants, the parent company of Carl's Jr. fast-food restaurant chain. (Imasco retained the remaining Roy Rogers locations, though CKE does some supplying of them). While its popular breakfast menu -- featuring "made from scratch" biscuits — had been its strength in the 1980s and 1990s, Hardee's was frequently criticized for its low hamburger quality. Over time, some Hardee's restaurants were converted to serve the much higher-quality hamburgers and many other products from Carl's Jr., and also took on the Carl's Jr. star logo in the process.

Some locations were also fully-rebranded Carl's Jr., then later returned the original Hardee's name after company profits began to increase (see Thickburger below). The stigma of the Hardee's name, however, continued to drive away customers, and initially many analysts considered the buyout a bad investment. However, the advent of the "Thickburger" rescued Hardee's from its downward spiral.

In both 1996 and 1997, CKE Restaurants bought out the remaining Burger Chef stores anywhere in the United States in Midwest, Southeast, and East Coast regions, and converted them into the Eastern half-based Hardee's brand.

However, with the introduction of the highly promoted "Thickburger" in 2003, which was made from high-quality Angus beef, Hardee's revenue began to increase. Thickburgers are sold in sizes up to 2/3-pound (300 g), pre-cooked weight. In November of 2004, Hardee's introduced the Monster Thickburger; containing 1,420 calories (5,950 kilojoules) and 107 grams of fat, it is arguably the largest hamburger on any American fast food menu.

As of 2006, Hardee's operates 1,993 restaurants in 31 U.S. states.

Kids' Meals and premiums

Although the franchise would come to humorously criticize such concepts, Hardee's has conceived several memorable Kids' Meal toys throughout the past few decades. The 1980s featured popular, nonposeable figures of the Smurfs as well as Beach Bunnies. Renditions of other cartoon characters would later premiere, including the Ghostbusters and Nickelodeon characters.

Other popular licenses were garnered as well. Marvel Comics characters would be featured in the 1990 Marvel Super Hero Vehicles collection. And in the summer of 2000, DC Comics' DC Super Heroes finally found a spot in the Hardee's toy scene.

Possibly the most well known Hardee's premiums, however, would be the Dancin' Singin' California Raisins. Several collections of the nonposeable figures were produced in 1987, 1988, 1991, and once again in 2001. Traditionally, they would be available with the purchase of Hardee's cinnamon raisin biscuits.

Hardee's advertising

In the early days of the take-over by Carl's Jr., Hardee's used the anthropomorphic smiling star logo that Carl's Jr. had used for many years. "The Hardee's Star", as it was now called, appeared in a series of commercials played by a dwarf in a costume likeness of the star. Norm MacDonald provided the voice for the Hardee's Star. For a time, many Hardee's locations even gave out free antenna toppers in the shape of the recently adapted star. The star remains Hardee's logo, but ceased appearing in the commercials with the advent of the Thickburger campaign.

Thickburger campaign

Early commercials during the Thickburger campaign made a point of acknowledging and apologizing for the poor quality of Hardee's past cuisine and service. Later commercials demonstrated adults attempting to fit their mouths around the large Thickburger.

The point of most Thickburger commercials, however, is that most adults prefer to eat large, restaurant-quality hamburgers instead of smaller, allegedly lower-quality hamburgers sold by fast-food establishments targeted at children, in particular McDonald's. The commercials took the rival fast food chain to task for the quality of its food and because it offers toys with meals marketed toward children. One of the commercials depicted a pregnant woman enjoying a Thickburger and the announcer telling her to enjoy Hardee's while she can, since she will "be eating at McDonald's for the next 12 years."

Commercials that did not mention McDonald's by name overtly referred to the chain, such as an ad where a man works on a classic car while eating a Thickburger. The announcer then says that "it's awful hard for those other chains to fit a busted carburetor in a bag" and then says that Hardee's "has big burgers because men need big toys."

Hardee's cavalier marketing is not simply confined to burgers. Recent ads for its chicken products state that "we have chicken breast strips because scientists have proven chickens don't have nuggets" and another for its 1/3-pound chicken breast sandwich where a chicken walks around with a black "censored" bar over where its breasts would be if it was a human to burlesque music.

In 2005, Hardee's also pushed the envelope with a controversial commercial featuring heiress Paris Hilton washing a luxury car in a skimpy outfit while striking poses and eating the Thickburger in a sensuous manner.

Red Burrito/Hardee's dual brand concept

A new dual branded concept opened in the St. Louis area in 2005. It is similar to the Green Burrito/Carl's Jr. dual brand concept. There's also one in Waterloo, Illinois and now open; Chester, Illinois. There are also rebranded Hardee's in Greenville, South Carolina and Columbia, South Carolina; now Hardee's/Red Burrito.

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